How To Even…Celebrate The Fourth of July

By Michael Gushue & CL Bledsoe

Every Fourth of July we commemorate the time aliens attacked the earth, made Bill Pullman president, and then blew up his White House. We never found out what they had against Bill. Maybe he owed them money or something. Anyway, we repelled them by going back in time and telling the British to piss off. Because we’re American af. And now, once a year, we launch explosives into the air in case any aliens get any funny ideas.

Food

Because Independence Day comes in the summer, the cookout is the only acceptable form of preparing and consuming food. This serves two purposes. One, it commemorates the struggles our forefathers went through fighting the redcoats and the aliens. It accomplishes this by making us spend time with people, which is almost as much of a drag as trenchfoot, or whatever people had to deal with back then. Two, it’s a good way to burn through some of your hot dog stores, which, let’s be honest, are building up.

But there’s a reason your hot dog stores are overflowing: you hate hot dogs. In fact, everyone hates hot dogs. They’re like sausages made by poorly trained gibbons. That’s why there are so many euphemisms for them: frankfurter, footlong, red hot, weenie, humiliating phallic symbol, Carl. But convention and bourgeois morality insist that the hot dog take pride of place in what would otherwise be a somewhat appealing mealtime. You yourself may even have been brainwashed into thinking you like hot dogs. Often, you will hear people eating a hot dog say something like “Now this is a good hot dog.” What they mean is “The hot dog is a horrible joke played on us by the universe because we had the temerity to develop a digestive tract.” It’s one of those lies that keeps us going, like, “It’ll be all right,” or, “Someday, I’ll be out of debt.”

You’ve no doubt noticed that there is a bun made exclusively for hot dogs. Why is that? What other food has a roll specifically designed for it? Hamburger rolls? Ha. You can put literally anything on a hamburger roll, and people do. And it works out fine, no matter what the media tells us. But what else can you put on a hot dog roll? Nothing. Wait, you say, what about lobster rolls? Nice try, Captain Salty. We’re talking about civilized parts of the world, where people don’t eat giant, wet insects. In any case, the bun here serves two functions. It isolates the hot dog and keeps it from contaminating other food, and it serves as a kind of biohazard sign for the unwary.

The other thing about hot dogs is they have so many add-ons (known as “condiments” from the Latin “condom,” a charm worn to protect someone from the consequences of his actions). Condiments — mustard, relish, onions, ketchup, mayonnaise, sprinkles, ibuprofen, masking tape — are there to disguise the hot dog from being recognized until it’s too late.

Both the bun and condiments are the key to “enjoying” this mandatory Fourth of July ordeal. Here’s how: first, have the hot dog placed securely in the bun. Then cover it in a heavy layer of whatever condiments are on offer. Next, using a pair of pliers, carefully extract the hot dog from underneath the condiment cloaking device. Quickly but unobtrusively let the hot dog fall into a nearby bush or feed it to a pet dog. You can now safely eat the bun and condiments without the horrible anticipation of a hot dog in there somewhere. Don’t forget to say, “Now this is a good hot dog.”

Lighting The Grill

Much like the hot dog and the socializing, the grill is meant to remind us how good we have it not celebrating the 4th all the time. The idea is that you’re supposed to cook food on that disgusting thing. To do that, you’ve got to produce heat, which means you need to start a fire. Most people use charcoal. Some people use a mixture of wood chips and charcoal. Some people use a mixture of wood chips, charcoal, and Nu Metal albums. The problem with Nu Metal albums is they’re toxic to listen to, so be careful just to burn them.

Once you’ve gathered your materials, you need something to make them burn. Here are some things you can use to start a charcoal fire:

• Lighter fluid
• Gasoline
• Liquid nitrogen
• “I am the God of Hellfire and I bring you: Fire!”
• A brittle sense of humor
• A Kendrick Lamar album (Warning: no charcoal needed as the album is already on fire!)

Douse your materials liberally with lighter fluid in a 1:2 ratio: one part whatever you’re burning, and two parts lighter fluid. (If you’re using Nu Metal albums, add more lighter fluid.) Conventional wisdom tells us to let the flames die down a bit, but conventional wisdom made Limp Bizkit a multi-platinum success, so. Also, with all the gasoline you poured on there, your charcoal’s going to burn off in about 45 seconds. Once you’ve got the thing lit, you’d better get your hot dogs on quick so they have enough time to caramelize. Otherwise, you might actually taste them when you eat them.

Drinks

There are two things red-blooded Americans drink on the 4th of July: whatever beer is on sale and Mountain Dew Kickstart Blueberry Pomegranate. These drinks will give you the energy and proper level of confusion to deal with the day’s festivities.

An important addendum: On the 4th, we drink our dranks out of Red Plastic Cups. This is an ancient tradition with deep religious significance. The red coloring of the plastic cup signifies the blood of Bill Pullman, who died for our sins. The liquid in the cup is transformed into his blood through the religious ceremony of the Complaining About The FatCats, which is when our fathers have had a few and let us know what they really think about things.

Fireworks

Some people believe that we set off fireworks on Halloween, sorry, on July 4th because Americans love to blow things up and give themselves 3rd degree burns. Although this is true, it’s not the reason for the 4th of July’s explosive displays. As we mentioned above, the purpose of fireworks is to remind any nearby aliens that we’re ready to kick their 3-cheeked butts if they get any funny ideas.

Fireworks are illegal in some states and restricted in others. In general, they tend to be frowned upon when exploded near people, like under their lawn chairs. If you’re concerned about using fireworks in a state where they’re illegal, we suggest you set them off inside your home. Don’t forget to pull down the blinds and close the curtains. However, if, like us, you don’t have blinds or curtains on your windows for religious reasons, use your basement or attic. Extra points if you set them off near a pile of oily rags.

Parades

4th of July parades rarely feature fat guys distributing candy, which seems like a lost opportunity. The earliest 4th of July parades consisted of groups of drunken fathers, who’d wandered away from their backyards in search of More Ice. It began with one and then two and three. Small groups stumbled into each other and headed downhill. None of them knew where they were going, and most couldn’t remember what they were looking for. They roamed the streets, until crowds of concerned onlookers formed. Modern day parades are much the same, except the fathers tend to be wearing pants.

Besides a bunch a fathers maybe/maybe not wearing pants, here are the other three essential elements to any 4th of July parade:

Uncle Sam. Having someone dressed up as Uncle Sam is the only way to tell that the parade you’re watching is not taking place in France, England, or some other boring country. Each item of Uncle Sam’s traditional appearance has a symbolic value. The chin beard is there to remind us that human beings evolved from goats, which explains the smell. The red, white, and blue clothes represent our three most precious commodities: cake icing, ketchup, and blue ketchup. Finally the large top hat hides Uncle Sam’s devil-horns. We’re just saying, wouldn’t be hard for him to shove a pillow down his shirt and toss out a little candy, right?

Fire trucks. The traditional show of gleaming, polished fire trucks driving majestically down Main Street is a long standing tradition displaying a town’s pride and dedication to lax building codes and union busting. They also serve as a reminder that 4th of July parades are the best time to commit those acts of arson you’ve always been dreaming about. At times, though rarely (see above), firemen will throw treats from the fire engine to children and hot moms.

High school marching bands. There’s nothing like a high school marching band to remind us that the school’s music program has been cut because of the enormous corporate tax breaks the corrupt city council has handed out to Walmart and the rendering plant built where the town square used to be. That’s why they’re all playing kazoos.

You may be thinking, yeah, okay, but who needs a marching band, anyway? If the kids were worth a darn, they’d be playing sports, aka football. This is certainly an observation, but let us ask you this: without a marching band, what would happen during halftime? Would there even be a halftime? And if there were no halftime, when would you pee and get more chips? During the game? That’s crazy talk! We don’t mean to sound like commies here. We’re just saying even dweebs can serve a worthwhile purpose sometimes, if used properly.

Miscellaneous

Probably the most important part of the 4th of July celebration is Bill Pullman. Whether he’s keeping our parents abreast of the latest marketing trends in home health care or explaining his philosophy of being present while also being absent while also being a present in his Ted Talk: The Real Aliens Are Inside Our Heads, Bill Pullman is a national treasure and should, nay, must be celebrated.

However you choose to celebrate the 4th of July, be sure to remember the sacrifices made by those who’ve gone before us, the hot dogs they were forced to eat, the pantless fathers they were forced to see. George Washington’s troops spending the winter in Valley Forge, probably in a Motel 8, in a smoking room with bedbugs. If it weren’t for them, we’d all have posh accents and a decent national theater. Or the Continental Congress, with men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson Airplane, inventing free speech and the continental breakfast. Think of it. Without the First Amendment we would never have had Andrew “Dice” Clay. All those brave souls, through their difficulties and hardships, paved the way for us to be able to watch fireworks on TV while eating veggie dogs, which they would’ve slapped out of our hands. They’re all dead now, but what advice would they have for us if they were here today? We’d like to think “Be sure to have a plausible alibi ready before you drop a bunch of cherry bombs into a port-a-potty.”